How Elizabeth Barrett Browning Saved My Life

by Mameve Medwed

  He clears his throat. Here it comes. “Are you married?” he asks.

  Not what I expect. Is that a professional or personal query? I’m tempted to answer. Why do you want to know? I want to ask. “Uh-uh.” I shake my head.

  He leans closer. “I was married for about two minutes,” he confides. “When I was young. One of those first-love things that are pretty much destined to peter out.”

  “I know what you mean,” I second. “Not the marriage but the first-love bit.”

  “A rite of passage. Hard on the heart but good for poetry.” He sighs. “We’ll have to exchange war stories someday.”

  Before I grow too hopeful, I remind myself where I am and why and what for. Maybe the you’re-terrific, what-a-good-eater, I-adore-poetry-too, I-have-also-loved-and-lost, we’ll-discuss-this-at-a-later-date is simply journalistic foreplay. Besides, as I know all too well from past experience, writers spell trouble. “Are these”—I cast around for the right words—“these personal questions part of the interview?”

  “Strictly off the record. And totally unprofessional.” He checks his watch. “I suppose”—he draws the syllables out—“I’d better start gathering some of the information I need. Let’s order another round of beer and get to work.” He signals for the waiter.

  “Is this so tough we need a lot of drinking to cushion the blow?”

  He smiles. “Painless, I promise.” He takes out a small notebook, folds the cover over like a steno pad, and pulls a pen from his shirt pocket.

  “At least you don’t have a tape recorder.”

  “Never use them. In my experience, it sets up a wall between the reporter and the subject.” His eyes hold mine. They’re mocha, soft as a cocker spaniel’s.

  Despite my best intentions, I drink another beer. I try to warn myself that flirting—can I still recognize flirting?—is part of a reporter’s bag of tricks. There’s probably a whole course at the J-school on how to butter up a subject to get her to reveal her innermost secrets against her will. I should view his questions in the same category as deposing a witness. There ought to be a manual to prepare you for an interview like Mary Agnes’s workbook for witnesses. I need to be wary. But it’s hard to think legal, professional, Law & Order when you’re gnawing at ribs and swilling beer with a guy with a cleft in his chin.

  He starts slowly, my education, where I grew up, how I became interested in antiques.

  I relax. “My mother was a flea-market hound,” I explain. “A collector. She took me to auctions when I was a kid. I still have the doll I bid on and won when I was seven.”

  “Maybe we can get a photograph of that doll. Of you holding it.”

  I tuck my hair behind my ears. “A photograph?”

  “Of course. A picture’s worth a…you know. Readers crave them. Can you describe the doll?”

  I take another swig. I settle back. This is easy, I decide. I don’t have to reveal the truth about Henrietta, my father, my like-everyone-else’s dysfunctional family, dysfunctional in its own way. I can talk about a doll’s gingham dress. Its button blue eyes. I can arrange the facts of my life into a recipe of my choosing to make the prettiest, most decorative cake I myself select.

  Todd jots down a hieroglyphic or two. He nods. He smiles. He laughs. He slaps his knee. “Go on,” he says.

  I go on. Would you think me vain if I told you others have pronounced me an amusing conversationalist? Would you find it unseemly if I confess that he seems fascinated with everything that comes out of my mouth? Granted it’s his job, but nevertheless, his spellbound absorption provokes some on-the-spot polishing of my recently tarnished storytelling skills. I spin sentences. He throws back his head and howls at them.

  He asks about my booth, how I arranged it, my pricing system, my sales. “Describe Antiques Roadshow and all the steps leading up to it,” he coaches. Has anybody cared that much about the details of my life? At least since my mother died? Since my split with Ned? Don’t worry. Just because I’ve been living on the margins so long, a few temporary and strictly business moments at the center of attention will hardly turn my head. Still, it’s funny how being treated not even as an object of desire, but simply as an object of interest, can build one’s self-esteem. I feel warmth rise from my toes to my brow; I could have scrubbed my whole body with orange citrus toothpaste the way my skin tingles.

  I tell Todd about lugging my chamber pot on the T, about the snaking lines, about other people’s treasures so easily and tactfully dismissed, about my progress through the five stations of the Roadshow cross until I’m in front of TV cameras and seated next to the expert on chamber pots. I tell him about Carol, about her carpenter’s apron full of jars and potions, about her way with an astrological chart.

  He leans closer. “What did she say about you? About your sign?”

  I duck my chin. “I couldn’t possibly.”

  “Come on,” he encourages.

  I don’t need much encouragement. Even though I’ve been raised not to be boastful, how could it be boastful, I rationalize, to repeat the words of an astrologer? Words applicable to everyone born from mid-November to mid-December. “She said—not that she knows—I’m an original thinker. Optimistic even when my hopes are dashed.” Charmed and plied with booze as I am, I still have the sense not to report the rest of Carol’s analysis: that when I meet the right man, hidden passions will surge and, well, world, watch out. “Not that anyone can ever believe any of that garbage,” I add.

  “I believe it about you,” he says. “You’ve got original thinker written all over you.” He folds his napkin. He stirs sugar into his coffee. “As far as dashed hopes, from what I can see there aren’t too many.” He taps his pen. “So how did you feel when you first heard what the chamber pot was worth?”

  “You’d probably need a poet to do that justice,” I say. If the Eskimos have one thousand words for snow, how hard could it be for me to come up with something more sophisticated than the cool or awesome that first leaps to my tongue. How can I try to describe the pure ecstasy of that moment, before the joy got tainted with all that followed? If Antiques Roadshow wasn’t quite up there with St. Barnaby’s Chapel, it was still right up there. “Well,” I begin. “The surprise itself, of its being worth something, of the Barrett connection and the dog…” I hesitate.

  “Keep going. You’re doing fine.”

  “Well, I count it as one of the most delicious moments of my life.”

  “I can understand that. What’s so absolutely awesome,” he adds, “so cool, is not just the Browning stuff. But Flush. The irony of the word itself associated with the chamber pot.”

  “Bathroom humor.”

  “Yes. I’m afraid I’m stuck with a toddler’s delight in scatology. But besides that, I especially like the literary connotation.”

  “Is there anything you don’t know?” I ask.

  He reddens becomingly. “Rocket science.”

  I laugh. “I mean, you’re familiar with the book Flush?” I stop. “But of course you would be, having studied Browning and all.”

  “Anybody who’s familiar with nineteenth-century English lit would have come across Elizabeth’s poem.”

  “Not anybody,” I say. Not me, I don’t divulge.

  He gives a self-effacing shrug. “I must admit I’m partial to cocker spaniels. When my marriage broke up, I got Wordsworth, who, I now realize, is the spitting image of the picture of Flush on the Woolf paperback. When you see him, I’m sure you’ll agree.”

  So there’ll be a next time. That is, if I can believe him. That is, if he’s not another Clyde.

  That is, if he’s not another Ned.

  He rubs his chin. “I read Flush for the interview. My homework. So I have you to thank for this discovery. Until this assignment, I never knew about Woolf ’s biography. A charming story particularly for what it tells about Browning and Casa Guidi. I think the scenes showing Flush’s jealousy of Robert are spot-on. The kidnapping—dognapping, I guess—is hilarious.”
r />   I smile.

  He smiles. “Sometimes—this time at any rate—I’m very happy I became a journalist.” He shakes his head. “Let’s face it, there are these pockets of pleasure—though often few and far between—when you can just about agree with Browning that ‘God’s in his heaven—/All’s right with the world.’”

  Do I agree? I thought so with Ned, perhaps, once in a while, with Clyde. And look what happened. Why haven’t I learned my lesson? Bad luck comes in threes, my inner lawyer warns. Three on a match. Three strikes and you’re out. Try as I might, I can’t sway my jury of one. I need a Mary Agnes Finch to make the case.

  Maybe it’s the beer. Maybe it’s the remarkable eyes, maybe it’s the poetry, maybe it’s simply the novelty of male attention even if it comes from someone doing his job. No matter. Just let me state right now, right here, at this table in the comer of the East Coast Grill, in Inman Square, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in zip code oh-two-one-three-nine, all’s right with my world.

  As soon as I have this thought, I want to issue a retraction. Not only because the minute you declare you’re content, the ax starts to fall, but also because I must have communicated an uncharacteristic, positive, optimistic, moment-in-time worldview to Todd. Granting him the tools to dig a little deeper. “So what else happened,” he asks, “in the aftermath? How has your life changed?”

  My face must register something less than joy since he immediately holds up his hand. “I’ve taken enough of your time,” he apologizes. “I’m sure your schedule is packed.”

  If he only knew. Even so, I can act the part. I bustle. I smooth my skirt. I heft my pocketbook. I look at my watch. “Since you bring it up…” I moan, as if my harassed secretary were just now prioritizing my packed schedule like a triage team in the emergency room.

  He waves for the check. “Why don’t we stop here. My deadline is flexible. We’ll have plenty of opportunity to explore these issues more.” He slides his notebook into his pocket. He walks around to my side of the table. He pulls out my chair. For a second he holds my elbow. His fingers tighten in what I’m almost sure is a definite, though slight, squeeze. When he lets go, I feel an inexplicable sense of loss. “Let me be your shadow,” he suggests. “If it’s all right, if you consent, I’d love to come along to a flea market or tag sale with you, to follow you around, to watch you work.”

  “I’m not sure…” I pause. “It’s not very exciting. For a nondealer, that is. Traipsing through muddy fields. Sifting through junk.”

  “Compared to listening to the minutes of a city council meeting? Compared to asking a lottery winner what kind of car he’ll buy?” He shakes his head. “My goal would be to pick up pointers for my readers. To convey to them a sense of how a professional eye operates.”

  “I’ll be pretty preoccupied,” I warn. “It’s one thing to have lunch like this, quite another to be actually on the job out in the field.”

  He grins. “I can promise good publicity.”

  “In that case…” I concede, businesswoman to the core.

  “I swear you’ll hardly know I’m there.” My shadow claps his hands, a problem-solved, that’s-settled gesture. “So, are there any treasure-hunting opportunities coming up?”

  “As a matter of fact…” I dig into my pocketbook. I make a big fuss of pulling out my calendar, of riffling through it, as if I can barely turn the pages, so heavy are they with obligations both personal and professional. “Umm, let’s see,” I consider. “Well, what do you know! There’s a tag sale this Saturday morning in Kerry, New Hampshire.” I stop. “Which might be too far away.”

  “Not at all. It sounds like a blast. We can make a day of it.” He tucks a wad of bills under the saucer for the tip. “I’ll pick you up.”

  Are things moving too fast? “That’s very nice of you but not necessary. I usually lease a car from Rent-A-Wreck. A wagon, since I often have a load to cart home.”

  “I can offer a roof rack and a ton of bungee cords. How early should we leave?”

  “Seven?”

  He winces. “On a Saturday morning? The things I do for my job.”

  “It’s important to get there early. Before the best stuff is sold. Tell your readers that.”

  “Will do.” He opens the restaurant door. He lets the Kierkegaard-reading waif slip through, then holds it wide for me. “And as a reward, Saturday night I’ll take you to dinner.”

  “Really?” I pause. “As part of your job?” I ask. I’m not the only one anxious to get the facts straight.

  He takes a step back. He sweeps his arm across his waist. He bows. “For the pleasure of your company.”

  Ten

  I get up at six. Enough time to take a shower and shave my legs. I’ve come a long way since my middle school days and those off-the-feminist-wagon college moments devoted to the un-Cambridge-like ritual of showering, depilating, tweezing, moisturizing, deep-cleansing, blow-drying, manicuring, and flossing for a date. Was I deluding myself that those seventh grade boys hadn’t seen me in gym shorts with gum stuck to my hair? And as for Ned—and my desperate Ned-related attempts at self-beautification—what glamour-puss make over could mask the kid underneath, the kid underfoot, muddied and scraped after a fall from her bike? What cosmetic transformation could hide the preteen, her teeth in braces, Clearasil dotting her adolescent zits? Thank God the era has ended when the arrival of Seventeen marked the highlight of my month.

  Don’t worry. I haven’t pulled out my Victoria’s Secret underwear from the back of my drawer. I have no plans to bury the three-to-a-pack white cotton granny skivvies. I’m under no illusion that my role as passenger in a car driven by a reporter nosing out a story equals being with a man. A Saturday night dinner hardly counts as a date if the meal is payment for allowing him to shadow me. Can he expense it? I wonder. Will the Globe pick up the check?

  No matter. I pull on my just-pressed jeans. I find a clean T-shirt that doesn’t broadcast a far-left-of-center cause. I wouldn’t want to discourage a New Hampshire dealer from giving me a good price. Since I look a little pale at this hour of the morning, I bronze my cheeks. I wish I’d paid more attention to how Carol had mapped my face and less to how she’d read my sign. As a concession to a close-quarters three-hour drive, I check my cache of perfume. I eliminate anything containing musk. I reject all scents advertised by a sultry model with implants and collagen-puffed lips. I settle for light and lemony. I wouldn’t want Todd to feel trapped in his car with one of those Pine-Sol’d green trees cabdrivers dangle from their rearview mirrors.

  He rings my bell at the dot of seven. “You look nice,” he says as I slink down my tenement treads with the grace of Isabella Stewart Gardner descending her Italianate marble stairs.

  I don’t tell him how nice he looks. The charm of that just-woke-up-and-rolled-out-of-bed dishabille. Hair askew, unironed jeans, wrinkled denim shirt he might have slept in, buttons buttoned wrong to expose a whorl of chest hair that I can’t help gawking at.

  “Far too nice,” he adds, “to be digging around in some New Hampshire farmer’s barn.”

  I pat my Levi’s. “These old things” bursts out of my mouth, surprising me. Where did I steal that line? What movie actress in Balenciaga mouthed those words?

  “I’m not talking about your clothes.”

  “Oh, come on,” I groan.

  His car—an egg-yolk-yellow VW Beetle with roof rack and a backseat the size of a chamber pot—is parked outside my building, hazard lights flashing. He opens the door for me. He tilts his head toward my ear. “And by the way,” he whispers, “the perfume is dynamite.”

  Inside, between our seats, tucked into a plastic double mug holder, sit two steaming Dunkin’ Donuts Styrofoam coffee cups. On a tray beside them lie packets of sugar and Sweet’n Low, along with sealed thimbles of half-and-half.

  “You’ve thought of everything.”

  He shifts gears. He pulls out onto Cambridge Street. “It’s a long drive,” he says.

  A glut of traffi
c is leaving town all at once. I’m grateful. Between that and the coffee and the many road narrows, construction ahead, form single lane signs, our conversation is safely desultory. “I’m not great in the morning,” Todd admits. He speeds up to keep a signaling car from cutting in. “I really come awake at night.”

  I look at him. Does dinner count as night? Should I be nervous about a whole day and evening with someone I hardly know? In a car? In a farmer’s field? In a restaurant? An apt setting for Colonel Mustard at a tag sale with a farm implement. And you know the outcome of that scenario.

  What have I done? I’ve climbed into a car with a stranger. One of the first don’ts you learn as a child. We’re setting off to cross the state line. Those hazard lights were blinking for a reason. Why didn’t I do a background search, a criminal records check on the Internet? Even though I did call the Globe, did I bother to verify? Did I ask to see his reporter’s badge the way any sensible victim of crime, any knowledgeable criminal, any intelligent witness demands to inspect a Law & Order cop’s ID?

  I’ve worked myself into a state when I realize we are indeed on the road to New Hampshire, the doors aren’t locked, and Todd’s got a folder marked The Boston Globe on the backseat of the car. “Do you mind reaching into the glove compartment for my sunglasses?” he asks.

  It’s not the voice of a serial killer, I reassure myself. Not even the voice of a serial apology compiler. I open the glove compartment. There on the top, next to his glasses, is a photo of a dog. I bring it out.

  Todd slides on the glasses. Instant movie star. He should be gliding along Hollywood Boulevard rather than rolling past New Hampshire discount liquor stores. He nods at the photograph. “That’s Wordsworth,” he informs. The cocker spaniel is reddish gold with beseeching eyes. Except for his tartan collar, he could be the clone of Flush. “My pride and joy.” He sighs.